The International Debt Crisis in Historical Perspective - Softcover

9780262550222: The International Debt Crisis in Historical Perspective

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262550229 ISBN 13: 9780262550222

Publisher: MIT Press, 1992

This anatomy of financial crises shows that the worldwide debt crisis of the 1980s was not unprecedented and was even forecast by many. Eichengreen and Lindert bring together original studies that assess the historical record to see what lessons can be learned for resolving today's crisis. "Me International Debt Crisis in Historical Perspective] demonstrates effectively how the historical perspective can help us understand the nature of international debt crises with particular recurring features such as reckless borrowing, excessive optimism of lenders, and the failure to recognize the time dimension in economic development. . . This stimulating volume shows the value of the historical perspective for policymakers, lenders, and borrowers when appraising foreign investment possibilities, dangers, and pitfalls. The future is not always like the past, but resembles it often enough for the past to be a relevant consideration." - A. G. Ford, Economic History Review

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About the Author:

Barry Eichengreen is George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Capital Flows and Crises (MIT Press, 2002) and other books.

Peter H. Lindert is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Davis.

Review:

Eichengreen and Lindert have assembled a fine group of scholars who think clearly and write lucidly. Their book conveys a lesson and a warning. Lenders and borrowers behave predictably in ways that produce periodic debt crises remarkably similar in origin and outcome. New names have been given to old ways of muddling through but not much else was new in the 1980s. Readers of this history are not likely to repeat it. But that will happen later after it has been forgotten.

―Peter B. Kenen, Princeton University

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